About fifteen years ago, our son had to interview a family member about World War II. He only had one surviving grandparent, his grandmother, so he interviewed her. I was so glad he did it – and embarrassed that I had never done so myself.
It is often said that people who have been in wars don’t like to talk about their experiences. But I never asked. I never asked my dad. I never asked my mother. I feel bad about it now, but I am glad that at least Ross did it – and we videotaped it.
Her experiences were fascinating. They had married before the war; actually twelve days before Hitler invaded Poland. When my dad was eventually drafted (he had tried to enlist in the Seabees, but first his eyesight wasn’t up to their standards and then he had high blood pressure; he finally decided to just wait until he was drafted), after basic training he was sent to a base in Muskogee, Oklahoma. My mother followed him and got a job in a bank in Muskogee.
When Ross asked my mother if she was happy about V-E Day, she said it was good, but it didn’t mean as much to her as if it had been V-J Day. Even to this day, she said, everybody celebrates V-E Day, but you never hear them celebrating V-J Day. That irritates her. It might sound silly, she said, but it does.
I think I understand. It was good that Hitler was dead and Germany had surrendered, but her husband was still at war. And today, when people celebrate V-E Day without remembering V-J Day, they are, in a way, forgetting about the men in the Pacific, who, even after Germany surrendered, still had a war to fight and an enemy to beat.
Fortunately, within a little over three months (though to my mother, it seemed like a long time), Japan surrendered, too, and my dad was able to come home. Which is why, at least in our family, V-J Day was always the bigger day.
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